Black Lives Matters is Putting a Halt on Xmas as Usual

A Black Lives Matter activist says the Mall of America was used as “a decoy” to start a protest that quickly moved to Minneapolis-St.

There were more than a dozen arrests in #BlackXMas protests in Los Angeles and Minneapolis Wednesday.

On one of the busiest shopping days of the year, Montgomery said the retail mecca is the ideal venue for their demonstration to pressure authorities involved in the investigation of Clark’s death to release video footage. Paul International Airport, where they blocked traffic and chanted, “Black lives, they matter here”.

“There will be no business as usual until we get accountability for our dead, and justice for the living”, the group said.

Gov. Mark Dayton said the protest, in addition to increasingly bad winter weather, made for a “very, very unsafe situation”.

Hoping to draw attention to a recent police shooting of a black man in Minneapolis, hundreds of protesters briefly gathered inside the nation’s largest shopping mall before abruptly walking out.

In November, a judge dismissed charges of unlawful assembly and aiding trespass against 11 Black Lives Matter organizers, but kept in place trespass charges against 17 individual protesters and said no group possesses a constitutional right to political demonstration over the objection of the mall’s private ownership and management.

In a press release, Black Lives Matter Minneapolis said the protest was against “unmitigated state sanctioned violence against Black people and communities of color”.

The death of Jamar Clark in a shooting by Minneapolis police has sparked a number of demonstrations in Minnesota, including one occupation outside of the police station during which five demonstrators were shot. “The organizers of today’s protest were well aware of that policy”.

Protesters, who gathered around 2:30 p.m., were met with officers using a loud horn to say the demonstration on mall property was not authorized.

I’m not sure the owners of Mall of America have thought through what it would look like if police in riot gear show up to their mall two days before Christmas to arrest peaceful protesters. Paul International Airport – which resulted in the 45-minute closure of several terminal checkpoints; a freeway leading to the San Francisco International Airport, and other strategic points in each city.

The privately owned mall said another demonstration would mean lost sales.

The Mall of America sought a court injunction blocking the protest after a rally last Christmas drew hundreds of demonstrators to the East Rotunda.

Customer traffic was also down Wednesday, they said. The mall went on lockdown, police ushered everyone out and protesters headed to the Minneapolis-St. Three organizers were banned from attending, but the judge said she doesn’t have the power to prevent others from showing up. Some stores closed for about an hour.